There is Nothing Less Passive than the Act of Fleeing

What follows is a condensed and edited version of a text for a panel that was presented at UCIRA’s “Future Tense: Alternative Arts and Economies in the University” conference held in San Diego, California on November 18, 2010. The panel shared the same name as a 13-day itinerant seminar in Berlin organized by Dockray, Waldorf, and Fiona Whitton earlier that year, in July. The seminar began with an excerpt from Tiqqun’s Introduction to Civil War, which was co-translated into English by Smith; and later read a chapter from Pasquinelli’s Animal Spirits: A Bestiary of the Commons. Both authors have also participated in meetings at The Public School in Los Angeles and Berlin.Both the panel and the seminar developed out of longer conversations at The Public School in Los Angeles, which began in late 2007 under Telic Arts Exchange. The Public School is a school with no curriculum, where classes are proposed and organized by the public.